Bruce Springsteen
St Luke Old Street Church
London
9 April 2006
BBC Broadcast, Sold On Song
Bruce Springsteen performed a special Sold On Song concert for Radio 2, recorded
on May 9th 2006, in London.
Bruce played songs from his new album, We Shall Overcome - The
Seeger Sessions and appeared with his full Seegar Sessions Band - 18
musicians in total, including E Street Band members Patti Scialfa and Soozie
Tyrell. It's the smallest concert he's ever played outside the US,
with the biggest band he's ever had!
- John Henry
- Oh Mary Don't You Weep
- How Can A Poor Man Live
- Mrs McGrath
- Oklahoma Home
- Jacob's Ladder
- We Shall Overcome
- Pay Me My Money Down
return
Recorded at St. Luke's in London's East End, Bruce Springsteen performs an
intimate concert of songs selected from his new album, We Shall Overcome
- The Seeger Sessons, a collection of standards and spirituals popularized
by the legendary Pete Seeger. Springsteen's UK concert performances have
thrilled the critics, with THE INDEPENDENT raving, "an astonishingly rich
evening ... his music has rarely sounded more spontaneous or vitalizing than
this," and THE OBSERVER adding, "Springsteen and the Seeger Session band
were an inspiring triumph." Among the songs featured are "John Henry," "O
Mary Don't You Weep," "Pay Me My Money Down," and "We Shall Overcome."
Bruce Springsteen first recorded "We Shall Overcome" in 1997 for the Pete
Seeger tribute album, Where Have All The Flowers Gone: The Songs of Pete
Seeger, to which he and several other noted artists lent their voice.
According to Springsteen, this was the impetus for his deeper exploration
of Seeger's music that eventually led to this latest CD, released on April
25, 2006. He teamed with veteran musicians from New York City on instruments
not often associated with his musical style -- fiddle, banjo, washboard,
upright bass -- and cut the CD without rehearsals or formal song arrangements
to achieve the sound he was after, "a bunch of people just sitting around
playing."
Find out what's helped ensure the popularity and longevity of folk songs
in the essay by contributor Ed Ward.
How is it that the songs Bruce Springsteen taps into for his latest project
are so familiar? From "We Shall Overcome," of the CD's title, to "John Henry,"
these are from a body of songs that "everybody" of a certain age knew. You
might have learned them at school, at camp, in church, or from television.
You felt you'd just always known them, even though you had no idea where
they came from or who wrote them.
Only much, much later might you have begun analyzing the songs. "She'll Be
Coming 'Round the Mountain ..." What is that, anyway? Who is "she"? Why is
her arrival so important? Or, speaking of mountains, how about "Big Rock
Candy Mountain"? Never mind the fact that rock candy isn't around much these
days; all of a sudden it dawns on you that this is a song about hunger, hunger
as experienced by people without a home, but yearning for one where there's
no effort in obtaining life's basic needs, at last. You've stumbled upon
an artifact of America's hobo class, as chronicled by singer Harry "Haywire
Mac" McClintock -- something that both does and doesn't exist today, a social
problem going back to, among other things, the federal government's treatment
of Civil War veterans.
Which is just another way of saying that folk music is complicated but easy.
Easy to learn, easy to play and sing, but complex in its content when looked
at closely. We know for a fact that the Casey Jones whose death was immortalized
in song was a real engineer of a real train. We know when he died and how,
although why his story and not those of countless other engineers who died
in train wrecks has survived is a mystery. Was it as simple as the fact that
Jones' story accidentally wound up with a real good tune? And how about "John
Henry"? A tune about an African-American martyr to the industrial system
-- the giant who beat a steam drill and died from his mighty exertions --
has been sung for years and now will be introduced to a new generation, thanks
to Springsteen's decision to include it in his Seeger Sessions CD. Did John
Henry exist? Who are the others in the story? And, come to think of it, why
is it so much fun to hear about a guy killing himself with overwork?
His legacy doesn't stop there. Examine this song long enough and you realize
that John Henry is black and the boss, the guy running the steam drill, is
white. Is this one of the reasons that beating the drill is so important
-- not just to John Henry but to the song's survival? Obviously, there's
something affirming in knowing that the human body, the human spirit, can
outdo the machine, but there's something more: behind the jolly tune and
its story, this, like many folk songs, is a protest song.
The value of folk songs is, obviously, that folks sing them, whether to protest
or just to have fun. Sometimes, it's surprising to discover who wrote them
and how they evolved. Familiar songs like "Goodnight, Irene" existed as sheet
music produced by a music publishing company in Cincinnati that employed
professional songwriters -- in this case, an African-American one -- to write
them. That discovery was made long after the song, introduced by Huddie Ledbetter,
better known as Lead Belly, had become part of the folk song canon and been
a top hit for The Weavers, a folk group with its origins in the depression,
one of whose members was a gangly guy with a banjo named Pete Seeger. He
also helped popularize and spread "We Shall Overcome," which eventually became
the anthem of the civil rights movement, a song many erroneously believe
to be a traditional negro spiritual.
Seeger must be pretty tired these days of being compared to Johnny Appleseed,
but it's his own fault for being so relentless in finding, learning, and
spreading folk songs -- American and others -- throughout his career. He's
even written a couple himself: "If I Had a Hammer," "Where Have All the Flowers
Gone," and "Turn! Turn! Turn!" He's performed in every conceivable venue,
changing the repertoire to suit the occasion, but there's one thing you can
be absolutely sure happened at many of these events: he'd say something like,
"Come on, sing it with me!" or "Everybody!"
That's because Pete Seeger understands a central fact of folk music: it's
fun to sing, and it's more fun if everyone around you is singing too. Singing,
of course, is an art, and everyone is aware that some people do it better
than others. But singing in a crowd is different. It's exhilarating, and
it's as easy as exhaling. Something that preachers in America's religious
revivals have been aware of since the 18th century, and one that works for
anyone trying to get a message across, whether sacred or profane: there is,
as an old labor folk song says, power in a union.
The power of voices lifted in song seems to be under threat these days as
people retreat into their own private media worlds, plugged into their iPodsô.
But it only seems that way, since attending any concert will show that people
still love to sing along, and they'll do it at the slightest provocation.
And what about folk music? Well, just glancing at the history of folk revivals
in the United States, you can see that there's rise and fall. Scratch a rocker,
though, and as often as not a folkie is under there somewhere, which is why
it's not surprising to see a rocker who's thought long and hard about the
nature of America is paying tribute to a folkie who has done his part to
shape our nation according to its best principles.
The concert was recorded live at London's St. Luke's Church in May 2006.
Bruce Springsteen along with the Seeger Sessions Band performed eight of
the 13 tracks off WE SHALL OVERCOME: THE SEEGER SESSIONS, as well as the
depression-era song "How Can a Poor Man Stand Such Times and Live?," which
was their closing number at their recent appearance at the 2006 New Orleans
Jazz & Heritage Festival.
"John Henry"
Printed version first appeared in 1900.
"O Mary Don't You Weep"
Negro spiritual
"How Can a Poor Man Stand Such Times and Live?"
Written by Blind Alfred Reed, with additional lyrics by Bruce Springsteen
"Mrs. McGrath"
Published in a Dublin broadside in 1815.
"My Oklahoma Home"
Written by Agnes "Sis" Cunningham and Bill Cunningham
"Jacob's Ladder"
Negro spiritual
"We Shall Overcome"
Written by Charles Albert Tinsley, revised by Zilphia Horton, Frank Hamilton,
Guy Carawan, Pete Seeger
"Pay Me My Money Down"
Sea chantey